Title: A Results-oriented Approach to Capacity Development for Democratic Governance
1A Results-oriented Approach to Capacity
Development for Democratic Governance
- Workshop for CIDA
- Ottawa,
- 10.-11.December 2008
2Session 1
- Introductions and
- Learning Objectives
3Learning Objectives
- Make sense of capacity concepts
- Recognise key elements of the CD challenge in the
democratic governance area - Be able to assist partners adopting a
results-based operational approach to CD - Know options for and limits to own role in
support to CD
4Session 2
- The Capacity Development Challenge - Overview
5Accra Agenda for Action
- Donors will support efforts to increase the
capacity of all development actors parliaments,
central and local governments, CSOs, research
institutes, media and the private sector to
take an active role in dialogue on development
policy and the role of aid..
6The Paris/Accra point of departure
- We agreed in the Paris Declaration that
capacity development is the responsibility of
developing countries, with donors playing a
supportive role, and that technical co-operation
is one means among others to develop capacity. - Accra Agenda for Action
7Then what are we talking about?
- Capacity synonyms
- Ability, capability, aptitude, faculty,
competence, facility, power, gift -
- So what is the capacity of
this car?
8CD What does it mean?
- Many view capacity development in very vague
terms - Capacity development is not even a term that
most people outside of development organizations
really know much about. - The lack of a clear and agreed definition of
what is meant by capacity development is a
challenge
9The definitions ...
- Capacity
- The ability of people, organisations and society
- as a whole to manage their affairs successfully.
-
- Capacity development
- The process by which people and organisations
- create and strengthen their capacity....
- Support to capacity development
- Inputs to capacity development processes
- delivered by external actors....
10Capacity is inside people, organisations and
broader systems
shaped and influenced by external factors and
actors
11Capacity in plain figures
Two non-exclusive options Working on the
demand side Working on the supply-side
Supporting change
Contextual factors and actors influencing capacity
12Five key elements of the approach
- Focus on change
- Holistic approach
- Focus on what is there
- Results focus
- Serious about ownership and about donors playing
second fiddle jointly
13 The Change Function
Dissatis- faction
Process of change
Vision
Enhanced capacity
Cost of change
14Incomplete functions
- D x P x V Change!
- D x P Fast road to confusion
- D x V Anxiety and frustration
- P x V Bottom of inbox
15Tools for Change
Dissatisfaction 1. Quick Scanning Matrix 2.
Setting the stage Mapping sector and governance
actors 3. Political Economy and Stakeholder
Analysis 4. Organisational assessment
Vision and design 7. Sequencing/ scoping 8.
Logical design
Change process 5. Partners role in CD
processes 6. Change management capacity and design
16Session 3
- Assessing capacity Holistic, outputs, power
issues what to look for?
17 Actors, Organisations and System in Democratic
Governance
Political System/Government
Context
Citizens, voters, consumers, economic agents,
elites etc.
Checks and balances organisations
Core public agencies
Public and private frontline agencies
Donors
Governance, demand
Accountability, supply
18Analytical framework - 1
Contextual factors beyond influence
Development results
Governance
Inputs
Outputs
Immed. intermed. Outcome
Impact
Contextual factors within influence
19What assessments often find...
- Lack of resources
- Lack of planning
- Lack of effective tax regime
- No transparency
- No effective oversight
- No focus on results
- No.
20Understandingnothing??
Measuring the difference?
Desired Reality Democratic governance
Current reality
..or understanding reality?
21Combining values and understanding?
Measuring an actionable difference?
Desired reality Progress towards democratic
governance
Current reality
.. understanding reality
relevant benchmarks within reach
.. credible change process
22Capacity diagnosis, step by step..
- Outside-in
- Why assess, who should assess?
- Watch the context
- Focus on results
- Inputs
- Go inside the box other boxes...and
- What lies beneath?
231. Accra ambiguities on assessments
- Developing countries will systematically
identify areas where there is a need to
strengthen the capacity to perform.at all
levelsand design strategies to address them - Developing countries and donors will jointly
assess the quality of country systems in a
country-led process using mutually agreed
diagnostic tools. developing countries will lead
in defining reformDonors will support these
reforms and provide capacity development
assistance.
24 2. Embedded in the context
Agents/actors inside and outside organisations
Institutional factors
Structural factors
25 Stakeholders and actors..
- Individuals and collectives pursuing particular
interests... - Political economic elite, civil servants, the
military, civil society, donors... - Always strategizing, always dynamic...
- ..and embedded in structural and institutional
drivers of and constraints to change - How can actors help to deal with factor
constraints and exploit drivers?
26 Actors Stakeholders
Political System/Government
Context
Citizens, voters, consumers, economic agents,
elites etc.
Checks and balances organisations
Core public agencies
Public and private frontline agencies
Donors
Governance, demand
Accountability, supply
273. Outputs first outcomes next!
- Outputs are all aspects of products, services and
regulatory functions - Past output levels point to likely future
- Outputs are good proxies for capacity
- Capacity changes causes outputs to change
- Dialogue about outputs diverts attention from
inputs, vague plans, TA, training - But It is not that simple!
28Challenge
Outputs? Prepare for the House of
the Commons!
No, never ever!
Yes, obviously!
29Tensions in results-orientation
- Managing by Results
- Meet the targets
- Hard Outputs
- Objective assessment or verification
- Outwards accountability
- Rigorous methods and high quality data
- Sanctions and rewards
- Encourages conservative behaviour
- Managing for Results
- Continuous improvement
- Also soft outputs, outcomes and impacts
- Self-assessment and participation
- In- and outwards accountability
- Rapid, low cost methods
- Motivation, learning
- Encourages risk-taking, experimenting
305. Capacity The six-box model
31The 6 boxes unpacked
- Strategy Are goals and strategies clear? Do
the inputs and contexts fit? - Structures How is work divided?
- Leadership Does someone keep the boxes in
balance adapt to the context?
32The 6 box unpacked (2)
- Internal Relationships
- Between boss-staff, peers, and units?
Constructive conflict resolution approaches? - Helpful mechanisms (systems processes)
- Are coordinating and control instruments
adequate (planning, budgeting, auditing,
monitoring) - Rewards (motivation)
- Are there incentives for doing key functions?
336. What lies beneath?
- Look for both the functional and the
political dimensions of organisations - Look for both formal and informal aspects
- All organisations have informal aspects and a
political dimension - Functional, political, formal, informal - all can
strengthen or weaken capacity and change
prospects - Question Who needs to know what, and when,
about these aspects?
34Functional and political dimension of capacity
Functional dimension Political dimension
Main unit of analysis? Driving forces? Image of man? Change? Change efforts? Focus on functional task-and-work system A sense of norms, intrinsic motivation Employees caring for the organisation Participative reasoning, finding best technical solution, orderly Internal systems, structures, skills, technology etc Focus on power- and-loyalty systems Sanctions and rewards, incentives Individuals caring for themselves Internal conflict, coalition with powerful external agents, unpredictable Incentives, change of key staff, outsmarting opposition
35Tool Diagnosis of formal/informal fit
Formal System Informal System
Purposes Is there goal clarity? Is there goal agreement?
Structure Functional product/ project or matrix? How is work actually done?
Relation-ships Who should deal with whom on what? What technologies should be used? How well do they do it? Quality of relations? Modes of conflict management?
Rewards (incentives) Explicit system what is it? Implicit, psychic rewards what do people feel about payoffs?
Leader-ship What do top people manage? How? Normative style of management?
Helpful mecha-nisms What is the Budget system? MIS? Planning system? Control system? What are they actually used for? How do they function in practice? How are systems subverted?
36Summary Diagnostic dimensions
Focus on the functional-rational dimension Focus on the political dimension
Focus on factors within the organisation(s) How is the job done? How is power exercised and interests accommodated?
Focus on factors in the external environment Is there an enabling environment for doing the job? Which forces influences the internal power relations?
37Session 4
- Getting CD results and processes right for
democratic governance
38Breaking away from a donor-centric focus
Figure 1 The traditional, limited assumption
focusing on donor inputs
Donor TC inputs activities
Figure 2 The extended assumption converting
ownership to tangible commitments
39Get CD results right
Design logic Start from impact, work backwards
to determine if and how TC support may be
relevant and feasible
CD outputs Organisation(s) with increased or
enhanced capacity to perform
Recurrent inputs to the organisation(s) (budget,
staff)
Increased or enhanced outputs (services, products)
Outcomes for users of products and services
Wider impact
Internal resources dedicated to CD
CD processes
External TC support to CD
40Get CD results right
Design logic Start from impact, work backwards
to determine if and how TC support may be
relevant and feasible
CD outputsTax authority has procedures, staff
and managers able to administer VAT
VAT revenue up 200, coverage 80 complete
VAT revenues transparently used in budget for
social services
Increased literacy, improved health, stronger
social contract
Manager, staff, some costs
Change process lead by managers with training,
coaching, joint development of new processes
V.A.T. experts
41Session 5
- Change Management and Ownership how to make it
operational?
42Challenge
- Which words are most positively connected with
capacity to develop and change? - Powerful, harmony, tension, emotional,
agreement, forceful, conflict, orderly, unknown,
planned, control, interested, motivated,
interests, drive, reason. -
- Add to the list
43Characteristics of change processes
- Rarely linear
- Normally contested and resisted
- Most often incremental
- Goals and plans have ritual functions as much as
managerial - Losses materialise quicker than wins
- Change creates angst
44Key factors for successful CD - process
- External pressure for change
- Leadership, creating sense of urgency, purpose
and feasibility - Credible coalition for change, with enough power
to deal with resistance - Carefully crafted change strategy and cunning
change management - Flexible change process
45Elements of change processes
- Agenda setting -gt
- Formulation/Design -gt
- Approval -gt
- Implementation -gt
- Pausing/phasing out -gt
46(No Transcript)
47Four options for interventions
Focus on the functional-rational dimension Focus on the political dimension
Focus on factors within the organisation(s) Getting the job done Getting power right, and accommodating interests
Focus on factors in the external environment Creating an enabling environment for doing the job Forcing change in the internal power relations
48Change interventions a la carte
Predominantly functional-rational perspective Predominantly political perspective
Interventions targeted at internal elements Change of systems, structures, procedures, technology skills training management training, Promotions, firing, targeted support to groups of reformers, sanctions against rent seeking, performance-based benefits to key staff
Interventions targeted at external stakeholders and factors Output-based budgeting, change of resource envelope, change in formal/legal mandate, introduction of supervisory agencies etc. Coalitions of external stakeholders strong enough to impose change. User pressure for accountability, support to advocacy and lobby groups, training of politicians, journalists.
49Session 6
- Donor support to CD roles, means and joint
approaches
50A Challenge from Paris
-
- Capacity development is the responsibility of
partner countries with donors playing a support
role - Paris Declaration 2006
- - What does that mean???
51 Focus on the sector/organisations
- Dont ask what donors can do for the
organisation/sector - ..ask what the sector/organisation might want to
do to strengthen its capacity - - and whether donors might be helpful or not to
that process - Question What could that entail?
52Tool Development partners roles
- Identify the roles actually played in cases you
are familiar with - Discuss if there is a trend between what was done
and what maybe should have been done - Time for the task 45 minutes
53Discussion donor roles in CD support?
- Capacity development is a domestic affair
- So, how proactive should donors be?
- If it depends on the context, which context
factors are then important?
54Donor roles in developing support
- Support development of broad directions for
change and of change strategy - Focus on feasible CD targets in terms of changes
in organisational outputs - Understand drivers and constraints to become a
trusted partner - Play a catalytic role, do not design or implement
- Ensure that CD inputs can adapt to the process
rather than vice versa
55Joint CD support in sector programmes
- The SWAp is all about strengthened sector
capacity, capacity often the difficult missing
link - CD is a core part of the sector programme, not an
add on get it on the agenda - Same principles apply for CD as for other SP
areas - Alignment to framework and joint plans before
joint funding modalities - Share diagnostics, reviews, dialogue
- Exploit comparative advantages and
disadvantages
56How donors can support CD processes
- Own efforts
- Behave!
- Get a grip on the context for CD
- Deepen dialogue
- Stop topping-up, poaching of staff etc.
- Dont go alone
- Seek and share knowledge
- Financed/acquired
- Peer mechanisms
- Piloting new ways
- Staff exchanges
- Knowledge acquisition
- TA
- Training
57TA - Triangular Affairs- Uneasy Balances?
Customer? Client? Beneficiary? Partner? Stakeholde
r? Employer?
LOCAL INSTITUTION(S)
Doer? Middleman? Mediator? Facilitator? Controll
er? Spy?
DONORS
TA
Employer? Stakeholder? Customer? Partner? Benefac
tor?
58Session 7
- Bringing the ingredients of the CD cocktail
together
59Repetition The Change Function?
Dissatis- faction
Process of change
Vision
Enhanced capacity
Cost of change
60 61Key factors for successful CD - content
- Scope of change in relation to existing capacity
- Realistic targets defined as outputs
- Combination of various options for CD
- External pressure for change
- Specificity of the products
- Sequencing and timing of interventions
62Basics first?
- Inputs and procedures before results?
- External controls before trust in managers?
- Dont try to replace patrimonialism, work to
modify it? - Work on reducing discretionality and opaqueness,
rather than introducing the Perfect System? - Leave NPM on the shelf?
63Sequencing
- Platform approach Basics first, consistent with
power relations and change capacity - Reform units?
- Ring-fencing strategic units?
- Focusing on uncontroversial routine processes?
- Risks in all approaches and no right answer
- Sectors cannot do it alone
64CD planning matrix
Impact
Outcomes CD development objective
Outputs CD immediate objectives
Capacity CD results
Recurrent inputs CD activities
CD inputs all sources
65Monitoring Capacity Development
- Why?
- Accountability
- Promote and sustain change
- Who?
- Depends
- What?
- The whole chain
66Self-assessment
Customer surveys
Political system
Academia
External partners
67Self-assessment
1 2 3 4 5
Leadership Customer orientation Teamwork System
s
2007 2006
68About helping others...
- That if real success is to attend the effort to
bring a man to a definite position, one must
first of all take pains to find HIM where he is
and begin there. - This is the secret of the art of helping others.
Any one who has not mastered this is himself
deluded when he proposes to help others. In order
to help another effectively I must understand
more than he- yet first of all surely I must
understand what he understands. If I do not know
that, my greater understanding will be of no help
to him. If, however, I am disposed to plume
myself of my greater understanding, it is because
I am vain or proud, so that at bottom, instead of
benefiting him, I want to be admired. But all
true effort to help begins with self-humiliation
the helper must first humble himself under him he
would help, and therewith must understand that to
help does not mean to be sovereign but to be a
servant, that to help does not mean to be
ambitious but to be patient, that to help means
to endure for the time being the imputation that
one is in the wrong and does not understand what
the other understands. -
- Søren Kierkegaard The Point of View for My Work
as An Author (1859). Translation by Walter
Lowrie, Harper Brothers, New York, 1962.
69Session 8
- Next steps and future options
- Open Forum
70Proposed agenda
- CD in CIDA new ways but love stays?
- Learning and research needs?
- Next steps?